It started six years ago as a novel experiment, but
its success helped pave the way for government information on the Internet.

In 1994, the non-profit Internet Multicasting Service
began offering the Securities and Exchange Commissionís EDGAR database
of corporate filings free via the Internet. A year later, as its funding
was about to expire, IMS urged the SEC to continue where it would leave
off.

At first, the SEC hedged, but in August 1995, it announced
it would take on the task of providing free Internet access to EDGAR. Half
a decade later, securities lawyers can find a wealth of useful information
free on the Internet.

The most important site for securities lawyers remains
that of the Securities and Exchange Commission,
www.sec.gov.
It is the Internet home of EDGAR, the SEC's Electronic Data Gathering,
Analysis and Retrieval system, by which companies file annual reports and
other disclosure documents. Updated daily, the database allows you to retrieve
any document filed electronically with the SEC since Jan. 1, 1994. EDGAR
archives can be searched for any information that might appear in a documentís
header. You can also search by ticker symbol. The site also houses current
SEC rule making, SEC enforcement actions, and press releases and speeches.

To search EDGAR in depth, steer clear of the SEC's
second-rate search tools and instead try 10k Wizard, www.10kwizard.com.
This totally free, better-than-EDGAR site combines real-time access with
full-text searching to create a superior EDGAR interface. Search for companies
not only by symbol, as at the SEC site, but also by partial company name.
You can search all filings in full text, allowing you to scan EDGAR for
words, phrases and names. Users can develop and store their own portfolios
of searches that monitor new SEC filings as they are received and notify
the user by e-mail when a filing meets the search criteria.

Another top-notch destination for EDGAR research is
EDGAR
Online, www.edgar-online.com,
although it suffers from a confusing case of multiple personality disorder.
The cause appears to be a classic dot-com syndrome: too many acquisitions
and too little consolidation. You see, EDGAR Online, a subscription-based
service, purchased Free Edgar, www.freeedgar.com,
a free service, and then added IPO Express, www.edgar-online.com/ipoexpress,
a related but still-different service. If you go to EDGAR Online, you find
no mention of Free Edgar. But go to Free Edgar, and you find yourself frequently
directed back into EDGAR Online. A visitor can become exhausted trying
to sort through the differences between the sites.

The differences, it seems, are in the enhancements.
Both EDGAR Online and Free EDGAR recently added real-time, full-text, keyword
and concept searching of the EDGAR database, putting them on a par with
10k Wizard. At EDGAR Online, you must register before you can view your
free search results, while Free EDGAR lets you search without registering.
Both services also offer a personalized, e-mail alert called Watchlist.
At Free EDGAR, the alert service is free; at EDGAR Online, it is not. The
difference between the free and pay Watchlists appears to be in the level
of customization the latter allows. While Free EDGAR lets you track a company,
EDGAR Online allows you to define more specific criteria to track.

EDGAR Online differs from its free cousin in these
other extras:

Word processing capabilities that allow you to import data from any SEC
document into Word or WordPerfect format.

EDGAR Online People, for researching corporate directors and executives.
Type in a name and obtain the person's salary, stock options, insider trading
and other information.

Beyond EDGAR

There's more to securities law than EDGAR, of course.
For an overview of all that the field entails, a comprehensive and well-constructed
destination is the Securities Law Homepage, www.seclaw.com.
Mark J. Astarita, a lawyer in New York, provides an extensive introduction
to securities law, federal and state, as well as other information such
as important court decisions and pending regulations. Beyond resources
for lawyers, the site features information centers for brokers and investors
and a third focused on securities arbitration.

A site that explores on the relationship between securities
regulation and the Internet is CyberSecuritiesLaw, www.cybersecuritieslaw.com,
edited by Blake A. Bell, a lawyer with New York's Simpson Thacher &
Bartlett. With a focus on current developments in the field, the site features
the CyberSecuritiesLaw Tribune, a newsletter providing brief items about
the field; the CyberSecuritiesLaw Case Digest; and the CyberSecuritiesLaw
Legislative Alert.

On a recent visit, the Tribune was up-to-date, but
neither the case digest nor the legislative alert had seen updates in more
than six months. Besides news, Bell has assembled a useful collection of
links covering both general and Internet-specific securities law, as well
as a useful bibliography. Rounding off the site are summaries of various
documents and releases from the SEC, the National Association of Securities
Dealers and the New York Stock Exchange.

EnforceNet.com, www.enforcenet.com,
also is devoted to securities regulation and the Internet, but puts its
emphasis on collecting and organizing links to news, resources and commentary
elsewhere on the Web. It is maintained by Bruce T. Carton, an attorney
in the Reston, Va., office of Piper Marbury Rudnick & Wolfe and former
senior counsel in the SEC's enforcement division. The site's collection
of links to general resources is useful, but its best feature is its links
to news items. Carton culls the links from message boards, newspapers,
press releases and other sources to create a timely and informative resource.

A simple but useful resource is the Center for
Corporate Law,
www.law.uc.edu/CCL.
Designed to be a repository of electronic data for corporate and securities
lawyers, the site features The Securities Lawyer's Deskbook, containing
the full text of essential federal securities laws, regulations and forms.
It includes the Securities Act of 1933 and associated rules and forms,
the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and associated rules, the Investment
Company Act of 1940, and Regulations S-K, S-B, S-T and S-X. The University
of Cincinnati College of Law sponsors the site.

For the practitioner, a wealth of useful information
can be mined from NASD Regulation, www.nasdr.com.
The NASDís well-designed Web site provides a general overview of securities
regulation as well as detailed information on practice and procedure. Among
its features: reports of all enforcement actions it has taken since 1996;
descriptions of arbitration and mediation procedures, including the NASDís
arbitration code; and a guide to investor protection.

Finally, a site that mixes innovation and information
is the Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, securities.stanford.edu.
Operated by Stanford Law School, it provides detailed and timely information
about securities fraud litigation, for use by the legal community, investors
and the media. The Clearinghouse publishes or links to the full text of
more than 2,000 complaints, motions, judicial opinions, and other major
class action filings and organizes them all under its own full-text search
engine.

From the site, you can register to receive automatic
notices of litigation developments by e-mail. In addition to its full text
offerings, the site includes analyses of complaints summarizing their major
allegations, docket sheets from the Northern District of California, settlement
documents, and links to related information. This is an extremely useful
site.

Robert J. Ambrogi is director of the American Lawyer
Media News Service. He can be reached at rambrogi@amlaw.com.